in suppressed and secret tones among the low
branches. Now and then a bat skimmed across the open glade, and melted
into the woodland darkness, or a rabbit flitted past, gray and
ghostlike. It was an hour when the woods assumed an awful beauty. Not
to meet ghosts seemed stranger than to meet them. The shadows of the
dead would have been in harmony with the mystic loveliness of this
green solitude--a world remote from the track of men.

Even to-night, though her heart was swelling with indignant pain,
Violet felt all the beauty of these familiar scenes. They were a part
of her life, and so long as she lived she must love and rejoice in
them. To-night as she rode quietly along, careful not to hurry Arion
after his long day's work, she looked around her with eyes full of deep
love and melancholy yearning. It seemed to her to-night that out of all
that had been sweet and lovely in her life only these forest scenes
remained. Humanity had not been kind to her. The dear father had been
snatched away: just when she had grown to the height of his stout
heart, and had fullest comprehension of his love, and greatest need of
his protection. Her mother was a gentle, smiling puppet, to whom it
were vain to appeal in her necessities. Her mother's husband was an
implacable enemy. Rorie, the friend of her childhood--who might have
been so much--had given himself to another. She was quite alone.

"The charcoal-burner in Mark Ash is not so solitary as I am," thought
Vixen bitterly. "Charcoal-burning is only part of his life. He has his
wife and children in his cottage at home."

By-and-by she came out of the winding forest ways into the straight
high-road that led to Briarwood, and now she put her horse at a smart
trot, for it was growing dark already, and she calculated that it must
be nearly eleven o'clock before she could accomplish what she had to do
and get back to the Abbey House. And at eleven doors were locked for
the night, and Captain Winstanley made a circuit of inspection, as
severely as the keeper of a prison. What would be said if she should
not get home till after the gates were locked, and the keys delivered
over to that stern janitor?

At last Briarwood came in sight above the dark clumps of beach and oak,
a white portico, shining lamplit windows. The lodge-gate stood
hospitably open, and Violet rode in without question, and up to the
pillared porch.

Roderick Vawdrey was standing in the porch smoking. He threw away